"Although the company's board of directors has not made any decision," it said. "The company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions."

"While we remain open to other potential solutions, the next step is an independent evaluation of AOL - a process that will likely take a few months," said Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner's chairman and chief executive.

It's no secret that AOL has found it difficult to recapture the glory days of the dotcom boom - when the internet company grew so large that it was able to buy Time Warner (rather than the other way round). At the time, it created the largest media company in the world - covering movies, television, magazine publishing, sports teams and internet.